Tourism arrivals are up

Tourists are coming in increased numbers to Jamaica but the time stayed remains flat despite more hotel rooms.

During the 2016 calendar year, stopover arrivals increased by 2.8% to 2,181,684 stopovers, according to the statistics from the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB).

Tourists stayed at hotels for an average 6.9 nights in 2016 or the same in 2015. While those that stayed elsewhere spent longer at 8.8 nights or the same year on year.

More than two-thirds of travelers came from the United States market which recorded a 4.6% increase to 1,406,058 visitors. This was 61,909 more arrivals from the US than in 2015, as well as, 109,601 more than in 2014. The Northeast was up by 1.1%, the Mid‐west up by 5.4%, the South up by 6.1%, and the West was up 13.5%.

The Canadian market with 372,137 visitors however recorded a decline of 4.9% or 19,272 less visitors than in 2015. The top producing provinces of Ontario with 255,142 fell by 2.6%, and Quebec, with 42,265 visitors fell by 13.3%.

Year‐to‐date, January to December 2016 period, arrivals from the European market grew by 5.5%. Total stopover arrivals were 294,709 this was 15,377 more arrivals than the 279,332 recorded in 2015. Northern Europe grew by 4.9%, moving from 215,830 in 2015 to 226,500 in 2016. Arrivals from the South/West region increased by 8.3% with 61,544 arrivals, and those from the Central/East region declined by 0.1% with 6,665 arrivals.

S. Johns
- Contributor
S. Johns started as a stock analyst at a leading brokerage firm in Kingston, Jamaica before transitioning to manage his own portfolio. He soon realized that although stocks go up and down,the desire for prompt market insight remained unchanging.

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